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X.mehrdad Posted 21 years ago
Vocabulary

Absalom

0 Hello everybody 02br
00This is a passage from Absalom, Absalom by Faulkner, and I have some difficulties to grasp the whole content, would you mind to give me a hand, and help me to understand it: 02br
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00‘01del00Henry, the provincial, the clown almost, given to instinctive and violent action rather than to thinking, ratiocination, who may have been conscious that his fierce provincial’s pride in his sister’s virginity was a false quantity which must incorporate in itself an inability to endure in order to be precious, to exist, and so much depend upon its loss, absence, to have existed at all. In fact, perhaps this is the pure and perfect incest: the brother realizing that the sister’s virginity must be destroyed in order to have existed at all, taking that virginity in the person of brother02del00 in-law, the man whom he would be if he could become, metamorphose into, the lover, the husband; by whom he would be despoiled, choose for despoiler, if he could become, metamorphose into the sister, the mistress, the bride.’ 02br
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00Any help would be appreciated. Thank You 0-
  

Top answer

, so please consider that as I attempt to summarize this passage. As you may wel understand, is a description of a character, Henry, and apparantly, his perspective on his sister's sexuality. " 02br 02br 00Henry is man who tends to act before he thinks.

— YoungCalifornian

  • , so please consider that as I attempt to summarize this passage.
  • As you may wel understand, is a description of a character, Henry, and apparantly, his perspective on his sister's sexuality.
  • " 02br 02br 00Henry is man who tends to act before he thinks.
  • He is unsophisticaed and will respond emotionally before considering the consequences of his actions.
  • " 02br 02br 00Henry may have been aware that his immature and unsophisticated pride in his sister's virginity was a foolish characteristic of his.
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15 Answers
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0 That's some very dense reading, and I've never read Absalom, Absalom!, so please consider that as I attempt to summarize this passage. As you may wel understand, is a description of a character, Henry, and apparantly, his perspective on his sister's sexuality. 02br
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00"Henry, the provincial, the clown almost, given to instinctive and violent action rather than to think
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0 Thank You Young Californian, first, I must say that 'much' in third line is a typo and it is'must', even though Idon't understand how the pride is considered as a quantity, how this quantity incorporates an inability to endure, and how this inability makes it precious and becomes the reason of its existence, finaly why so much depend upon its loss, and 'to have existed at all' refers to virgin
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0(01i00irrelevant text deleted02i00) 02br
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00MM 0-
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0 Hi, x.mehrdad, 02br
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00Let me try the first sentence. 02br
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00Here quantity means property/attribute, something you can measure and compare. 02br
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00However, this quantity is false, it contains a contradiction: it "incorporates in itself an inability to endure". Virginity does not (as a rule) exist forever. If it existed
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0 Sentence two: 02br
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00Here I think the incest (sexual relations between very closely related people) is not physical; it consists in "the brother REALIZING that his sister's virginity must be destroyed" for the reasons mentioned (to have existed at all). 02br
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00The brother imagines he is the husband (his own brother-in-law), who takes his sister
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0 Hello Miche, 02br
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00Thanks for your effort, but what I don't understand is why the pride is considered as a quantity, and does Faulkner mean that since the pride(false quantity) depends upon the sister's virginity, and would be lost with its loss, it(the pride)should not exist at all? 0-
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0I'll give it another try. 05002br
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00There is a very good word for quantity (mathematical quantity) in my native language and it seems easy to me to figure it out but I find it difficult to explain it in English. Just try to think of quantity not as an amount but as a feature. As YoungCalifornian put it - intentionally or not - as QUALITY. 02br
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0 Hello again, 02br
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00I am not convinced that he is using 'quantity' instead of quality(this is Faulkner), and secondly I believe that, here Faulkner means Henry's pride must depend upon the loss(which is durable and permanent ) of the virginity to find a reason for its existence and not on the virginity itsef which is perishable, but I am not sure. 0-
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0 Yes, x.mehrdad, I agree with you. He is talking about his PRIDE. He is just making a parallel with virginity, using words connected with virginity to talk about his pride, as the two are intertwined (his sister's virginity and his pride). 02br
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00About the first part of your sentence: I didn't mean to say Faulkner had made a spelling mistake. I was just tyring to find a
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0 Thanks Miche, you are great, if our hypothetical interpretation of the first scentence is true, then how should we understand the second sentence( considering that earlier in the novel, Faulkner elaborates the complex relationship existing between three characters, like what the sister knows and probably loves the husband to-be, mainly through, and perhapes because of the affection of her bro
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